Every Activity Has Steps
Virtually everything you ask or expect your child to do has multiple steps. And most likely, each of those steps has multiple steps. And even those may have multiple steps. Show your child what the whole activity looks like so she understands the goal, and then break it down.
Think on the micro level when asking your child to do something or showing her how it's done. Be particularly sensitive to these mini steps when an activity involves an area in which you know her sensory system is over- or underreactive. But since sensory areas intertwine, it can be hard to anticipate exactly what's going to be problematic. Take things one tiny piece at a time.
Problems with motor planning can result in major motor-skill delays for your child. Children who can't figure out how to do something will avoid that activity, whether it's making a bed, buttoning a shirt, cutting with scissors, or riding a bicycle.
Think not just of actual movements, but of the things that need to inform the movements. This is the level at which things often fall apart for kids with sensory integration disorder. Consider, for example, the many factors that go into the seemingly innocent task of buttoning a button.
To slide that small object through that only slightly larger hole, your child must do the following things, drawing on the following information:
Action |
Requires |
Potential Problems |
Understand the command |
Auditory attention; auditory processing |
Child's attention is caught by something else and command is missed; child has trouble making a transition from current activity to new activity |
Put her hand where the button is |
Proprioceptive, tactile, and vestibular information about the position of the hand and the body |
Child can't find button if she can't see it; requires additional input to make up for poor tactile and proprioceptive processing |
Put her other hand where the buttonhole is |
Same as above, but with the added complication of the hole being the lack of an item rather than an item, and being on a different piece of fabric than the button |
Same as above; child may need to see it or have her hand guided to it to find it |
Grab the button with her fingers |
Tactile sensitivity to feel the actual button; proprioceptive sensitivity to hold it just tight enough and stay steady |
Grab it too hard, it slips away; grab it too lightly, it slips from grasp or can't be manipulated; the concentration required may get in the way of being able to concentrate on the rest of the activity |
Grab the buttonhole with the fingers of her other hand |
Same as above, plus ability to do different things with different hands |
Put finger through hole and button won't fit; child may need to see hole in order to grab it properly; grabbing something that isn't there may be a little abstract |
Position the buttonhole over the button |
Lots of tactile and proprioceptive information, since the two pieces of fabric are moving in opposite directions and must be moved with accuracy and precision |
Moving two sides too much or not enough; putting too much space between them; inability to coordinate activity of two sides of the body |
While stretching the buttonhole over the button, push the button through |
Proprioceptive information to move things the right direction with the right force; tactile information to feel when the button is going through properly |
Inability to calibrate movements with the accuracy needed to get the button through the hole; child may need to see what she‧s doing, and even a mirror image may make things too confusingly backwards |
Now, do the same thing six or eight more times |
Sufficient motor planning abilities to recall the sequence of movements; same good information over again from the senses; no distractions |
Tears; screams; cries |
It may seem silly to break things down so excruciatingly. Popping a button through a hole is one quick gesture; what's the big deal? But to your child, it may seem like a momentous task. His brain does not give him the same information your brain gives you.
Just as a quick trip to the store seems like nothing unless you have a map that shows everything backward, an odometer that gives you bad information on how far you've gone, and a gas gauge that reads full when the tank is empty, a lack of good reliable information can turn a simple task into an endless journey.
Your child won't always get so lost. She may be able to do okay with motor planning for a short while and then lose her way. She may have the patience to work with things when she's not stressed and fall apart when she is. There may be problems of distractions at certain times and places that aren't present elsewhere.
